January 29, 2017

NO ONE HATES JUST PALESTINIANS:

The adverse reaction to Netanyahu's tweet, which was retweeted by Trump and drew far more attention than Netanyahu's tweets usually do as a result, appeared to be an early sign of the danger Netanyahu faces with aligning himself with Trump.

The Mexican government was outraged that he would involve himself in what it regards as a bilateral issue.

"The foreign ministry expressed to the government of Israel, via its ambassador in Mexico, its profound astonishment, rejection and disappointment over Prime Minister Netanyahu's message," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"Mexico is a friend of Israel and should be treated as such by its Prime Minister."

Dan Shapiro, who served as ambassador to Israel under Obama until nine days ago and still lives in the country, ditched diplomacy to question Netanyahu's motives in sending the tweet.

"Hard to explain this intervention on a hotly debated issue in domestic U.S. politics. Unless this endorsement is Trump's demand of Netanyahu for something Netanyahu wants," he wrote on Twitter, suggesting it may be linked to Trump's promise to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

"To me, it looks like Trump is already squeezing Netanyahu hard."

Opposition politician Yair Lapid, who is ahead of Netanyahu in recent opinion polls, was also scathing. Whereas Lapid has shied away from criticizing Netanyahu over the police investigations into him, this time he didn't hold back:

"A serious mistake by Netanyahu," Lapid tweeted in Hebrew.

"It is a needless declaration of war on Mexico and Hispanics and a rupture with the Democrats (including the majority of U.S. Jews). It doesn't matter what we think of the wall, don't we have enough troubles of our own?"